Little Skillet: Brown Sugar, Pecan & Bacon Grits
This was during the same day that I went to Santa Ramen. They have since changed the container for the grits. Its now like a ice cream pint container. I think its a lot harder to mix now than it was before. Still great best grits I've had in the city so far...
Santa Ramen
Went to Santa Ramen a while back here are the photos. Can't really say that I was impressed, but I'll need to go back and try again forgot what it tasted like.
Lunch at The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen
I've been looking forward to this place opening ever since I saw the constructions signs go up half a year ago on this SOMA establishment. TAGCK just opened up Friday, so just like an new hip food place that just opened, there was a line. The line wasn't that long, and the staff was super nice about it, apologizing for the wait, and offering water, and complementary house sodas to the people in line.
Here is a run down of what I had:
Reubenesque
gruyére, jarlsberg, David’s Old World pastrami, local ‘kraut, Lusty B’s bread ’n butter pickles, deli mustard on rye $10Smoky Tomato Soup
house made with crème fraîche, croutons $4House made New York deli-style pickle $1.5
House made sodas served from our vintage tap. Flavor: Vanilla Gingermint free!
The house soda was great, its really similar to an Italian soda in how its made, a couple pumps of syrup and some soda water. The flavor, Vanilla Gingermint was great, a more refined version of ginger ale. The flavors were distinct, the Vanilla is the first flavor you taste and it transitions beautifully into the ginger component as it does the two intermingle again. At the end the mint comes in and as you swallow it refreshes the pallet. They had another soda flavor available called spiced pomegranate, which I will have to try on my next visit. If its as good as the Vanilla Gingermint I can't wait to see what other flavors they will come out with.
The pickle was another surprise I got. Its not too vinegary or salty, what comes out most is the pickling spices they used. Crisp and refreshing with a hint of heat, what a tasty treat.
The sandwich was fantastic. The ingredients were in perfect proportion with each other, all the flavors came together and nothing overpowered each other. I enjoyed the taste of the rye bread, the caraway taste was stronger then I usually see in rye breads, but that just added to the depth of flavor of the sandwich. Sauerkraut, which actually still resembled the cabbage it was created from, had a nice mild sour/tart taste to it which went well with the pickles that were more on the sweeter side. The pastrami was thinly sliced moist and delicious, it had good flavor and my only complaint would be that I wanted more of it. The cheeses were still gooey and it felt like a blanket of deliciousness wrapping around all the other ingredients. Usually when I have a reuben style sandwich in the city something is always out of balance, either there is just way to much mustard that it kills my pallet or the sauerkraut is some weird consistency or just too sour, the pastrami is dry, too cold, or doesn't even taste like pastrami, none of those problems were present here. Each component of the sandwich were some of the best versions of the individual item I have tasted recently, all combined with a skillful hand.
The tomato soup was pleasing and I could see why its always used in combination with a grilled cheese, very comforting. There was a nice spice to the soup, which I couldn't determine if it came from peppers that were added or perhaps some seasoning used. There were a few things that detracted from it though. First I couldn't really get that smokey flavor, I don't think it tasted bad without it, but I would like to have seen what it would taste like had the smokey flavor been a stronger part of the dish. Secondly, this is more a personal preference type of thing, I would have liked to have a more crunchy crouton, something that could hold up better to soup and still stay crispy for a longer period. Lastly, I felt the tomato flavor of the soup was being lost in the mix, all the flavors were melded will together, but in this instance I think it would have been better if the tomato rose above the rest, with the others just complementing it. None of these are a deal breaker for the soup though, which was still delicious.
Final Rating:
Vanilla Gingermint House Soda: 10/10
More, more, I want more! This is some amazing stuff.
Deli Style Pickle: 9/10
Great Pickle nuff said.
Reubenesque: 9/10
A great sandwich with all components perfectly combined.
'Smokey' Tomato Soup: 8/10
A great soup, would have like it had more of the smokey flavor, also a strong tomato taste would have been good too. Needs crispier croutons
Overall: 9/10
I will definitely comeback to this place again and try the other sandwiches out. There are currently no breakfast items on the menu, but I can't wait to try those too. Looking forward to seeing where this place is going, but hopefully the line wont be too long next time.
Hapa Ramen is like Star Wars Episode One
Hapa Ramen is a new food stand that is slated to open at the San Francisco Ferry Building this summer. Now being a Ferry Building stand there is a level of expectation that is comes with that. For the most part the new breed of food stands that are coming out have been amazing. Namu, Tacolicious and others have all had exceptional food with impeccable execution. Sadly, Hapa Ramen's preview event that occurred tonight was far from either.
I won't talk too much about the service issues that occurred. To summarize those, the event began at 6:00pm, I got there around 6:20. From that point until we were seated was almost 4 hours. Afterwards it took 45 minutes to get our food, for a grand total of almost 5 hours waiting. As a final note on this we were the last group to be served.
When I first got the ramen the portion incredibly small, about a quater of the size that one would get at Katana-ya or Tanpopo, at equivalent prices. The price for a bowl of "Everything" ramen was 13 dollars. To add insult to injury, by the time we were seated they ran out of pork so the "Everything" ramen became the "Almost Everything" ramen. To be honest though even if the pork was included I don't think it could have salvaged this bowl of food. The aroma that came from the ramen was somewhat funky. It had the slight aroma of a ramen broth, but was dominated by something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Everything was generally lukewarm like it had been sitting on a shelf for 30 minutes to cool down before serving.
The noodles, which are hand made, were mushy and lacked texture. It was if they noodle was overcooked to the point that they were barely holding their shape and as soon as you put them in your mouth they would break apart. The broth was another big issue. There was no flavor whatsoever, which gave it a watered down taste. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a shio, shoyu, or tonkatsu style broth, but it didn't taste like anything. I had to add a lot of togarashi for it to even remotely have any flavor at all. There was also an unpleasant aftertaste that made it hard to finish. It was almost as if they put unwashed gobo into the broth which created an almost dirt like taste.
While the men and the broth were complete disasters, the topping didn't escape the ramen hell either. The karaage was flavorless, it would have been less offended if they would have just put boiled chicken down. The egg not bad, and the peas were okay. But the green onions were poorly chopped, looked liked they tried to slice them thinly, but ended up getting a few large uncut portions. The summer vegetables either rhubarb or celery was so chewy that it felt like it was gnawing or a piece of bark.
While I can attribute a lot of the problems to being just a test run and being the end of the night, I feel there are some core problems here for ramen purist that cannot be resolved without a whole reworking of some of the recipes. With that in mind I feel that this could be a good "Ferry Building Ramen". The toppings that were included are not the items one would traditionally associate with ramen in the first place. The broth doesn't invoke in my mind anything associated with the regular ramen flavors either, but they do go well with the whole organic, locally sourced vibe of the Ferry Building. For people who have never had real ramen before, or their only experience with it is the store bought instant stuff, then this might be amazingly tasty.
This whole experience can be summed up in the analogy of the title. There was so much hype in the blogosphere, and the lines and wait were so long that it is impossible to live up to that.
Final Rating:
1/10
The peas and egg were the only good things. This is so far from what I would consider ramen that it should be called something else.

















